January 4 , 2006

The whachacallit

By Angela Gunn

Those smart branding mavens over at Snark Hunting have spotlighted some great research put together by Elliott Back, a senior at Cornell who got to wondering how folks name their blogs. After churning through tens of thousands of sites, he's discovered the hundred most-used words in blog titles. Snark Hunting notes that they're mostly simple, descriptive words: blog, life, weblog, from, journal and so forth, to name the top five. But simple, descriptive words unfortunately run together in, as the Snarksters so memorably phrase it, a manky swirl of achromatic Gesso.

Agreed. And yet speaking as one of the half-dozen people who cogitated for over six months to name the blog you see before you, I have a few words the Snark guys would please to keep in mind: In-house committee. Live with this title forever. Boss's boss's boss's boss's boss. And, by all means, have mercy. And, sheesh, neither tech nor space are even on the list!

Further reading: